This disclosure pertains to interference in cellular communications systems. In particular, the disclosure pertains to interference information in conjunction with some or all of the following: Radio Resource Management (RRM), Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) communication, Machine Type Communications (MTC), Device-to-Device (D2D) communication, and use of frequency spectrum such as the Television (TV) White Space.
RRM refers to a system level control of radio resources such as user scheduling, link adaptation, handover, and transmit power.
CoMP transmission/reception, also known as the Multipoint Cooperative Communication (MCC) technology, is a technique to improve the network performance specially by boosting up the cell edge throughput. In CoMP enabled systems, Base Stations (BSs) are grouped into cooperation clusters, each of which contains a subset of a network's BSs. The BSs of each of the clusters exchange information and jointly process signals by forming virtual antenna arrays distributed in space. Furthermore, multiple User Equipment devices (UEs) can also simultaneously receive their signals from one or multiple transmission points in a coordinated or joint-processing manner.
MTC or Machine to Machine (M2M) communication relates to machines communicating directly with one another. As used herein, an MTC device is a wireless device that performs MTC or M2M communication. The use of the MTC devices can be a great opportunity for telecommunication operators to extend their network without significant costs. In M2M communications, MTC devices such as smart meters, signboards, cameras, remote sensors, laptops, appliances are connected to the cellular communications network. In most cases, MTC devices are expected to have low mobility, e.g., they are stationary or semi-stationary.
D2D communication has been developed to meet growing capacity demands due to rapid growth of wireless data services. In a D2D communication scenario, two UE devices directly communicate with each other without having the payload traversed through the backhaul network. D2D communication can potentially scale the capacity of the network, improve network resource utilization, such as network throughput, spectrum utilization, reduce transmission delays, and offload traffic from the network nodes, as well as improve coverage for UEs that do not have network coverage.
TV White Space refers to the unused TV channels between the active channels in the Very High Frequency (VHF) and Ultra High Frequency (UHF) spectrum. In the past, these buffers were placed between active TV channels to protect broadcasting interference. In recent years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made this spectrum available for unlicensed public use.
There is a need in the art to improve the RRM, COMP, D2D, and MTC and to make better use of frequency spectrum such as the TV White Space.